In recent years, as smart meters and the like have become widespread, functions providing users with a total power consumption value (instantaneous value) in a predetermined unit (a household, a company, a floor of one building, or the like) have been standardized. By providing not only the total power consumption value in the predetermined unit but also the power consumption value (instantaneous value) of a single electrical device used in the predetermined unit, measures for more precise power saving are expected to be prompted.
The power consumption value of an individual electrical device can be ascertained, for example, by mounting a measuring instrument on each electrical device. However, in the case of this method, a burden of mounting a measuring instrument on each electrical device is considerable. Further, a cost burden increases since the number of measurement instruments increases with an increase in the number of electrical devices.
Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose technologies for installing a measuring instrument in a power trunk line portion such as a power-feeding service entrance or a distribution board and inferring an operation state of each electrical device using measurement data (a total current consumption waveform or the like) measured with the measuring instrument. In the technologies, a feature amount (a training feature amount) during operation of each electrical device is prepared in advance and a sum training feature amount in which the training feature amounts are summed in any combination is further prepared in advance. Then, based on feature amounts extracted from the measurement data measured in the power trunk line portion and the training feature amounts (including the sum training feature amount) prepared in advance, an operation state of each electrical devices is inferred.
Patent Document 3 discloses a technology for generating a training feature amount indicating a feature amount during operation of each electrical device. Specifically, pieces of predetermined data (current consumption or the like) are individually measured by operating electrical devices in a house to be measured one by one. A feature amount is extracted from the measured data of each of the electrical devices and the extracted feature amount is stored as a training feature amount.